College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software • Hacker News Board

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#271

Post by ebiester » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #174

ebiester wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the hourly rate that you would expect for a professor? Consider that a tenure track professor (ignoring adjuncts) making $60,000 is expected to teach 3-4 classes, write original peer-reviewed research, and perform "service" (which takes the form of helping the university run itself, external speaking events, and advising.) Each individual class takes 15-20 hours a week for a course they haven't taught before…

What professors? The proportion of college classes being taught by professors is below 50% and dwindling. Most college teaching is done by adjuncts.

I mentioned adjuncts in there as well.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#272

Post by calvano915 » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

kevinschumacher wrote: post #237

cowmoo728 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a linux computer you can boot from usb or a second drive to run windows. That's what I did when I had to take exams using Proctortrack.

While I agree with you that most people who run Linux as a daily driver might be capable of running Windows as a secondary OS on occasion, this discounts the fact that he or she would be required to purchase the license (else break the law), and also ignores the fact that they should not be required to do so

While I'm against the use of crappy anticheat software, the windows solution would be easy for institutions with volume licensing. Perhaps a fair middle ground is to force institutions to provide bootable USB drives so students avoid corrupting their own installations.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#273

Post by jdmichal » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

csa wrote: post #205

schoolornot wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a BS/MS in CompSci in my twenties when I was immature as a person, now doing online classes for a non-tech major. As an "adult student" the system seems 10x more broken than it was when I was a high school graduate. Being young and tuition-free it was easy to grind through the material just worrying about the next test in the next class. Now, here I am as a tricenarian trying to relax and understand hundreds of p…

I agree with a lot of your comment, and I basically think large swathes of education are just fundamentally broken for a variety of unfortunate reasons. That said, I would like to answer this question: > Why are there still weeding-out classes? In majors that are oversubscribed (e.g., pre-med, CS, etc.), these classes weed out the people who like the idea of the major/career more than the actual work involved. Good w…

> 1. There is no way that a department could get through the same amount of material if they had to accommodate the less motivated and less capable in all of the courses.

This is the high-school-ification of university, and it's part of the problem. This is not mandatory learning / babysitting. Just stop accommodating them. Every class just moves at the pace it needs to move at, and if they can't keep up, so be it.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#274

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

ege_erdogan wrote: post #7

I see online synchronous 1-2 hour exams as a mistaken result of the "let's emulate in-person teaching in a remote setting" mindset. You don't succeed in remote teaching and learning by trying to make it as close as possible to the in-person setup. You have to treat it as an entirely different problem. Consider the synchronous exam. It is a perfect method of grading in-person. It is hard to cheat and all people take t…

[deleted]

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#275

Post by interestica » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #222

interestica wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's most insane to me with a degree system: Everyone who has the same 'degree' could have had wildly different classes. What's the point? Maybe we need to dial it back to more of a 'certificate' based approach? Instead of the letters-beside-your-name, list the completed certificates. And this also gives the opportunity to better upgrade skills in the specific problem area. And maybe it can encourage more interdisc…

I don’t agree with this approach, the biggest value of a university degree is teaching someone how to think and learn in combination with some domain knowledge. Unless you are going for higher degrees, the specialization isn’t of prime importance. i.e. what one engineer/scientist/scholar learns within their field in undergrad compared to another is really not so important for their ability to do things related to tha…

Maybe I wasn't totally clear, but I think we actually agree.

To me, a focus on 'credit-based' system is about acknowledging that the boundaries of those domains are growing and changing. Gaining knowledge and expertise in one area can inform your work in another. The idea would be to broaden abilities, not focus on being 'exclusively prepared'.

> the biggest value of a university degree is teaching someone how to think and learn in combination with some domain knowledge.

I would add also: 'how to work', 'how to learn' and 'who to know'. By 'certs' I didn't just mean tech specializations. Courses can be about broader topics. A course on politics can be absolutely beneficial to an engineer. A more modular approach could also encourage lifelong learning rather than the "checkbox" that a degree satisfies.

>We have accreditation boards to determine what is required for a common base.

That's the problem. Those boards/requirements vary based on Universities and available instructors and resources. Yet, everyone comes out with the same degree.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#276

Post by ralphc » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

pizzaknife wrote: post #247

bzb6 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked even finer for those who paid someone else to do the test for them.

How does one fib proficiency in a role as an individual contributor? I mean after school is through? I have been a software engineer for 14years. I am self taught with only a 2yr degree i completed my 4th year into this career. Can a line in resume(a degree mention) remedy a failed technical screening process? Personal experience : I have declined several MD CS holders this year alone for positions because their demo…

With remote, anything is possible. Someone basically outsourced his job to China, paid someone a cheaper rate to do his work for him.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#277

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

silly-silly wrote: post #153

brewdad wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lost power (and internet) 45 seconds before my son's Physics final last spring during remote learning. He had to quickly scramble to take his testing materials outside and used his cell phone to access the exam. It worked out for him but easily could have been a disaster. We live at the edge of the school boundary and it was a localized outage due to a car hitting a pole, so he was the only student in his class th…

Are modern teachers really that robotic that they dont understand that 'things happen' outside of their limited domain of expectations ?

Teachers? Most developers I know have exactly the same blind spot. "What do you mean there's no internet connection?"

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#278

Post by wasdfff » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

ege_erdogan wrote: post #7

I see online synchronous 1-2 hour exams as a mistaken result of the "let's emulate in-person teaching in a remote setting" mindset. You don't succeed in remote teaching and learning by trying to make it as close as possible to the in-person setup. You have to treat it as an entirely different problem. Consider the synchronous exam. It is a perfect method of grading in-person. It is hard to cheat and all people take t…

My uni had me TA this semester which included proctoring exams over zoom. They gave me zero info what I’m supposed to do or even look for while sitting there in the zoom room. I think I was just there to add some semblance of authority. Total waste of time.

Its stupid easy to cheat in this remote world: write your cheat sheet out on a piece of paper and put it just out of sight of the webcam. No technology can beat that.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#279

Post by wasdfff » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #117

ege_erdogan wrote: post #7

I see online synchronous 1-2 hour exams as a mistaken result of the "let's emulate in-person teaching in a remote setting" mindset. You don't succeed in remote teaching and learning by trying to make it as close as possible to the in-person setup. You have to treat it as an entirely different problem. Consider the synchronous exam. It is a perfect method of grading in-person. It is hard to cheat and all people take t…

> You don't succeed in remote teaching and learning by trying to make it as close as possible to the in-person setup. You have to treat it as an entirely different problem. I agree at a high level, but practically speaking it's not realistic to expect colleges to completely reinvent their entire teaching systems for a temporary, 1-2 year remote learning period. Now that we've been dealing with COVID for almost an ent…

I TAed this semester and a surprising amount of students have totally terrible internet. One poor kid had to attempt the blackboard exam a dozen times due to connection issues. Even my home network gets saturated with everyone in the neighborhood working from home, which makes zoom calls impossible when lag is spiking, despite having the fastest internet my limited ISP choices offer me.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#280

Post by wasdfff » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 4:06 PM UTC

withinboredom wrote: post #158

low_key wrote: post #108

I took an online class in 2015 that used Proctorio. Even at that time the proctoring/anti-cheat software was a nightmare. I was semi-accused of cheating because of "anomalies" during one of my tests. It was quickly cleared up by talking to the professor. The software is a privacy disaster and any computer that has had any of this spyware installed should be considered compromised. I kept a separate hard drive and wou…

Here’s the thing, if you want to cheat, you’ll find a way to cheat. This won’t stop anyone, it just stops casual cheating at a pretty hefty price. Hell, just reading this article, I thought of various ways by having someone off screen listening to you read aloud and a projector mounted after the test starts, on the ceiling by another person who’s off screen. You could have a kvm switch to a whole different computer,…

No need to overcomplicate it. These technologies can be overcome with a phone in your lap connected to a groupchat with everyone in the class, or even a piece of paper with your cheat sheet.